Integrated care clinic focuses on prevention as well as treatment

Tuesday

Mar 24, 2009 at 12:01 AMMar 24, 2009 at 10:59 AM

Methodist Medical Center is giving patients a more integrated way to approach their health care. The center opened its first integrated medicine clinic earlier this month. The Methodist Center for Integrative Medicine will ultimately have two holistic physicians and a number of specialists including a chiropractor, massage therapist, nutritionist and acupuncturist.

Clare Howard

Methodist Medical Center is giving patients a more integrated way to approach their health care.

The center opened its first integrated medicine clinic earlier this month. The Methodist Center for Integrative Medicine will ultimately have two holistic physicians and a number of specialists including a chiropractor, massage therapist, nutritionist and acupuncturist. Biofeedback may also be added as a treatment option.

Dr. Jill Carnahan, M.D., board certified in family medicine and holistic medicine, is currently practicing at the new clinic. She said it is the only clinic of its kind between Chicago and St. Louis.

This summer, Dr. Roberta VanZant, D.O., will join the staff.

Integrative medicine is a healing-oriented approach that deals with body, mind and spirit in the prevention and treatment of illness. It uses natural, less-invasive interventions whenever possible.

"My toolbox is expanded. I still use all the conventional tests, drugs and surgeries, but I have additional tools including diet, nutrition, detox, herbal and hormonal balance," Carnahan said.

Traditional medicine is based on diagnosis of disease and illness. Holistic medicine looks at underlying processes that lead to disease and illness, she said.

"A patient may not have diabetes but is moving toward diabetes. Rather than saying 'come back next year,' I will work to reverse the process moving toward diabetes," Carnahan said. "Patients who are moving toward disease can change the process through nutritional interventions and lifestyle changes."

She said integrated medicine is part of the solution to our national health care crisis.

Altering the progression toward disease is less expensive than treating disease, she said, noting that the Obama administration, in the process of researching cost efficiencies in the American health care system, has reached out to the American Board of Holistic Medicine and the Institute of Functional Medicine.

Tim McCormack, director of physician and program development at Methodist, said, "The integrative medicine center fits perfectly with our vision of taking you 'well' into the future. Instead of trying to take care of illness after you have it, this is a preventable or proactive approach."

One issue, he said, is dealing with who will pay for this change. Many insurance companies and government programs "are based on reactionary medicine," he said. "Dr. Carnahan had great success at her previous location, so we are taking the plunge and setting up this center as a grass roots approach to change."

Insurance coverage varies for holistic treatments, Carnahan said.

"The codes we use are reimbursable, and we will give patients the paperwork, but they file their own claims," she said, noting that more people are using flex-savings and medical savings through work.

The clinic is designed to have a comfortable, non-medical feel.

Carnahan was previously in practice at Methodist Peartree. Her holistic practice there had limited hours.

At the new facility, she treats patients ranging in age from newborns to the elderly. Patients come from throughout central Illinois and as far as Iowa and St. Louis.